Islam – A Religion of Peace?

Is Islam a religion of peace?

    Most of us struggle to find common ground when discussing this question. The statement that Islam is a religion of peace is quite a controversial one in the Western world, and it often elicits a degree of contempt towards the person who utters it. Islamophobia is now one of the most prominent forms of prejudice throughout the Western world, and it is unfortunately widely accepted.

    The beliefs of the average Muslim are often conflated with the extremist positions of Jihadists. Casually Islamophobic statements, such as that “Muslims are a monolithic mass”, that they are “against civilization” or that “Islam is violent like the Mafia” are met with little to no scrutiny in our public discourse, and are regularly parroted by politicians, preachers, atheists, and talk-show hosts.

    It is abundantly clear that many people in the West continue to view Islam as an existential threat to their way of life. This belief is buoyed by a prominent undercurrent of xenophobia, which in turn is founded on centuries of Western Orientalism.

    The question “Is Islam a Religion a Peace?” is flawed. What we are really debating here isn’t whether Islam is a religion that espouses peace. Most of us have never laid eyes on the Hadith, nor have we read even one surah of the Quran. Therefore, we can only speculate, but cannot speak with any authority on what the religious texts of Islam dictate.

    The real debate here centers on whether Islam is inherently more violent than other religions. In other words, is Islam intrinsically more prone to radicalism than other religions are, and is it therefore more dangerous?

    Let’s explore some of the common claims made by the most ardent opponents of ‘Islamofascism’ and see what conclusions can be drawn.

Islamofascism?

     To start, let’s address that word: ‘Islamofascism’. This is a thoroughly ahistorical term, one of the big misnomers of our time. It conflates two fundamentally different ideologies; Fascism, which now encompasses a nebulous range of regimes, and Islamic fundamentalism, which itself comes in many different forms such as Wahhabism or Salafist Jihadism.

    Though it is possible to find parallels between the beliefs of Islamic Jihadists and Fascists – intolerance of minorities, homophobia, anti-Semitism, misogyny – direct connections between Fascism and Islamic fundamentalism are scant. Fascism is a European ideology which emerged in the last century, whereas Islamic fundamentalism in its present form took shape over the course of the last half century. 

    Islamic fundamentalists base their values on a novel interpretation of Jihad, which they associate with violent struggle against invaders and the unfaithful. However, Jihad is a complex religious concept which has existed for millennia. Since its origination, Jihad has meant different things, and its interpretations vary widely amongst the 1.8 billion Muslims of the world today.

    In its most literal sense, the term Jihad means struggling, and it connotates a Muslim’s efforts to struggle against sinful inclinations, and to strive towards moral betterment for themselves and their community. As such, Jihad encompasses a range of different actions, the majority of which have nothing to do with terrorism. For most Muslims, Jihad can mean something as simple as proslethyzing. (known as Jihad of the mouth)

    Fascism has become something of a buzz word in recent decades, and it has been applied to a disparate spectrum of various movements which would not have fit with its original definition. At its core, the term can be strongly identified with the regime of Italian fascist Benito Mussolini. Since Mussolini’s regime benefitted from a close relationship with the Catholic church, it seems conceivable therefore to some people to utilize the term ‘fascist’ to describe other movements with theocratic influences.

    However, it is important to emphasize that neither Baathism – the ideology of the Hussein and Assad regimes – nor Wahhabism/Salafist Jihadism – the ideology of Al-Qaeda – really fit within this definition of Fascism. It may be a fair characterization to say that these movements contain fascistic elements, but otherwise the term Islamofascism is erroneous. Ultimately, it serves to distort the image of Muslims in the Western world, by conflating their religion with a most vile ideology.

The Poll

    Yes, the poll. If you have ever typed the words ‘radical Islamic terror’ into your search engine, you have undoubtedly seen it. The internet is littered with video after article after polemic blogpost pointing to a set of polls performed throughout the Muslim world by the Pew Research Center which are purported to prove that most Muslims are ‘radical’.

    Partisan rags such as Truth Revolt and publications which talk about the Jews (((like this))) tend to rely exclusively on specific questions in the poll to substantiate their prejudices (their “deductive reasoning”). Attention is often called to the high percentage of Muslims in countries such as Egypt, Indonesia, and Afghanistan who showed support for the imposition of Sharia in their countries.

    For some pseudointellectual hacks, these findings present incontrovertible evidence proving that most Muslims are radicalized, and thus are supportive of radical Islamic terrorists. But as an eminent author once said: “the truth is rarely pure, and never simple”. Such is the case with the Pew Research Center’s “Muslim polls”.

    The polls in question are conducted regularly, and include many questions, most of which are not terrorist related. The insight these polls provide is invaluable, but the picture they draw is far from black and white. When considering a topic as serious as Islamic terrorism, nuance is critical if we are to understand anything.

    For one, Sharia is not as insidious as most of us are led to believe. Much like Jihad, the term Sharia encompasses a wide variety of laws and principles. Sharia today largely entails regulations which draw from the teachings of the Quran and the Hadith and cover various spheres of daily life, mainly concerning interpersonal and commercial relationships.

    In this sense, it is somewhat analogous to the Halakha of Judaism, or the Code of Canon Law of Catholic Christianity. Consequentially, the implementation of Sharia differs significantly by country, and therefore varies in terms of strictness. Radical interpretations of Sharia are promoted by the Wahhabi-Salafist school of Islamic thought, which is most prominently associated with terrorist groups such as ISIS and Al-Qaeda. 

    So, support for Sharia is far from a reliable indication of whether someone sympathizes with Islamic terrorists.  

    But what about those in the poll that “reacted favorably to 9/11”? Surely these are radicals? I hear you ask. Let’s examine that claim. This assertion is usually based on a finding which indicates more than 50% of Muslims from x Muslim country blame the U.S., Israel, or somebody other than al-Qaeda for 9/11.

    First, let’s note that this claim is rather vague, and doesn’t really allow for respondents to add much to their answer. But let’s assume that this claim is reflective of popular opinion in the Muslim world – though there really isn’t conclusive evidence to prove that –for the sake of argument. Are such people to be considered radicals of the same stock as the individuals who commit terrorist actions? Is that a reasonable standard?

    But what about their opinions regarding apostasy, honor killings, wearing the burqa etc.? Even if we assume that most Muslims are unreservedly in favor of the strictest tenets of Wahhabist Sharia teachings – a claim which the evidence contradicts – can we really consider social views, even very conservative ones, as indicative of radicalism akin to that of terrorists?  

    Most reasonable people will agree that this is too broad of a definition of radical. By these standards, there are millions – if not tens of millions – of white Americans who are ‘sympathetic to terrorists’ because of the far-right conservative social beliefs they hold. Regardless of what some xenophobes may think, the worldview of most Muslims does not pose an existential threat to us, and should not be an impetus for alarmism. It certainly doesn’t justify any kind of military action against Muslim countries.    

    It is also important to emphasize that these individual statistics fail to tell the full story. The majority of the population in Muslim countries surveyed had negative views of Islamic terrorist groups and actions. For instance, the overwhelming majority of Muslims in countries such as Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Israel, and Indonesia viewed ISIS negatively.

    When it comes to social views and Sharia the picture is far from clear. As PolitiFact pointed out, most Pakistani Muslims support Sharia law, but nearly 70 percent feel that Sharia should apply exclusively to Muslims. This doesn’t mean that the remaining 30 percent are radical, but it does demonstrate that there are a plethora of ways to judge what constitutes ‘radicalism’, none of which are decisive.

    Ultimately, it is a stretch to claim that any of these numbers taken individually ‘prove’ that Muslims are more prone to radicalism. If anything, the Pew Research polls when taken in their entirety indicate that this is an issue that cannot be distilled down to such broad generalizations.    

Taqiyya

    A term oft misrepresented, and the next item in the Islamophobe’s toolkit, the Islamic tradition of Taqiyya is a controversial subject in both the Western and Muslim worlds. According to the insistent rantings of the most dedicated wingnuts, Taqiyya is effectively a license for Muslims to lie in the advancement of their faith. 

    As such, Taqiyya is Islamophobic shorthand for how your city is being gradually and clandestinely Islamisized by your Muslim neighbors. (perhaps they are doing this in their spare time?? I guess that’s why they take so many days off…)

    This ‘theory’ is of course complete and utter hogwash, and anyone who engages in even a modicum of critical thinking will see this argument for what it is: alarmism. But what is Taqiyya? And what is it meant for?

    Put tersely, Taqiyya is meant as a method of defense against oppression. It provides Muslims with religious permission to ‘lie’ about their faith, to escape oppression and forcible conversion. Taqiyya is therefore intended for Muslims who comprise a minority where they live, and where the majority is actively suppressing minority faiths.

    Taqiyya was used for instance by Muslims in Spain so that they could escape the claws of the inquisition and was historically employed by Shiite Muslims to escape oppression by Sunni fanatics. Because of this, the practice is more common in the Shiite sect of Islam. 

    It is conceivable that terrorists could use this concept for their own violent aims. However, there is certainly no evidence to support the crackpot assertion that Taqiyya is employed by Muslim migrants to subvert the culture, government, or values of their host countries.

So, why terrorists?

    So, we’ve argued here the obvious; that not all Muslims are terrorists. Now, we must make a corollary point: not all terrorists are Muslim.

    In fact, white supremacist terrorism has been a far deadlier threat in the United States for the past two centuries and has done far more damage to the American cultural fabric than Islamic terrorists could ever hope to achieve. The Southern Poverty Law Center has recorded a 55% increase in the number of white nationalist hate groups in the US since 2017. 

    Since 2001, white supremacist and Christian terrorist movements were responsible for nearly twice as many deaths when compared to the death toll of Islamic terror in the US.     

    When you get right down to it, police terrorism against African Americans – in the form of extrajudicial killings, beatings, illegal detainment, intimidation, and arbitrary suspension of Habeus corpus – is a far more pernicious threat to American democracy. Whilst it is virtually impossible to estimate the true number of African Americans who are extrajudicially murdered by police, we know that African Americans are three times more likely to be shot by police then whites.   

    Our history is littered with a litany of atrocities committed against minorities with the express purpose of intimidating them and compelling them into submission via force. Most recently, the entire country was violently shaken by the murder of yet another black man by police forces, committed by a policeman who heretofore escaped any kind of prosecution despite having shot several people without justification.

    The point of our little detour into the depths of racist and sectarian violence in America isn’t whataboutism, but rather an exercise in broadening your perspective. Put simply, not all terrorists are Muslim. 

    Nevertheless, it remains an unspoken convention of primetime news to refer to white terrorists by any other name besides that one, whereas the word ‘terrorist’ has been made synonymous with Islamic fundamentalism in the American vernacular thanks to the media’s exclusive use of the word in the context of Islamic terrorism.     

    Even after shining light through all these fallacious claims, some of you may still have lingering doubts. Why, if all of this is true, are there Islamic terrorists??? In other words, why do some individuals in the Muslim world resort to terrorism?

Imperialism, A History

    To answer that question, we need to look at the recent history of the Middle East. It is safe to say that the Middle East is a very complex region. It is currently the epicenter of several bloody wars, and the site of much tumult, but it is also a region which is rapidly evolving economically, culturally, and politically. We cannot hope to fully understand the current state of the region without examining the past two hundred years of its history.

    Given that the history of the Middle East is so incalculably complicated, this summary will necessarily be brief. For the better part of the past two centuries, the Middle East was entirely under the dominion of foreign empires. It endured the gradual decline and rising instability that characterized the twilight years of the Ottoman Empire, only to be re-occupied by rising European empires.

    The powerful hegemons that were the French and British Empires effectively played a long con game on the peoples of the Middle East, promising them independence from the Ottomans, only to replace them as the new foreign oppressor. As the West strengthened its grip on the Middle East, it developed a longstanding discipline of academic study known as ‘Orientalism’.

    The idea that the culture of Arabs* – or Muslims generally – is more conducive towards violence, oppression of women, and general backwardness is nothing new. It’s literally a centuries old idea, and Orientalism played a crucial role in codifying it in Western culture. 

    Orientalism was a discipline responsible for the cataloging of the history, culture, flora, and fauna of what was once known as ‘The Orient’**: a generalized term which denoted virtually all of Asia. It also was central in academically formalizing the racist, stereotypical, and imperialist perceptions held towards the people which populate ‘The Orient’.

*though not all Arabs are Muslim, Islamophobes seldom take note of those distinctions. 

**this is an outdated term, and its use is discouraged

    In the minds of Orientalists, their region of study was a wild, vibrant, backwards, and storied land replete with stunningly beautiful women, and brutal simpleminded men. Orientalism thus served to normalize and formalize the language of the Western colonizer, and to integrate racialist ideas into popular culture.

    Orientalism proved instrumental in justifying Western imperialism by portraying the West as culturally, morally, and intellectually superior to ‘The Orient’. Similar efforts were directed towards other colonial possessions, most notoriously in Africa. Orientalism also built on the ancient idea of a ‘clash of civilizations’ between Christendom and the Mohammedans, further reinforcing the idea that Muslims are an insidious and subversive force that must be ‘tamed’ by Western power.

    The effort to codify prejudicial and imperialist beliefs in Western society has left long-lasting effects which we still contend with today. Orientalism is in no small part one of the principle reasons why so many people throughout Western society allow one-dimensional stereotypes to inform their opinions of the Islamic world. After all, if centuries of academic work reinforce your natural prejudices, then they appear far more legitimate.

    Some apply ‘window dressing’ to their Orientalist rhetoric by claiming their arguments are drawn from the democratic language of the Enlightenment, and not from white supremacist and imperialist rhetoric. After all, how can one be racist towards a religion or a region? This is pure folly, and indicative of a woeful ignorance of what the Enlightenment was.

    The Enlightenment was certainly a movement that espoused and promoted democratic ideas upon which all Western democracies are now based. But while intellectuals of the Enlightenment argued that all men– and men alone – are equal, some also stipulated that certain groups of men were more equal than others.

    These others were considered less equal because they were viewed as intrinsically incapable of valuing and implementing the principles of democratic emancipation. Placing them in a position of subjugation was thus seen as the moral prerogative. In this way, these ‘others’ would be ‘stewarded’ until they were deemed fit to enjoy the principles of emancipation.

    This interpretation was from its inception deeply rooted in Western ideas of race. Different races were gradually demonized, reduced to lesser beings due to perceived shortcomings – mental or otherwise – they were stereotyped as having. Consequently, the Enlightenment also played a role in rationalizing the oppression of people of color. 

    But while this oppression was purportedly with the goal of bringing oppressed peoples closer to the fruits of democracy, Enlightenment rhetoric ultimately served to enable Western exploitation, and to material development in colonial lands.

    Democratic ideals in their original form were therefore envisioned as privileges allotted to a very narrow segment of the population. The more pluralistic conceptualization of democracy as a right of all human beings is by contrast a relatively novel idea and had little currency when the first democratic republics – such as France and the United States – were forged in the fires of revolution.

    So, if you claim Islamophobic arguments to be employed ‘in defense of the enlightenment’, you are still arguing from a place that is bolstered by the doctrines of racialism, misogyny, and white supremacy.

After the Empires

    Once the gigantic European empires began to dissolve, their imperial exploitation was gradually substituted with a subtler form of foreign interference which prevails in virtually every Arab country to this day.

    In Iraq alone there have been at least ten coup d’état attempts in the last century, almost all of which were in some way connected to the interference of foreign powers. The CIA proved instrumental in enabling the rise to power of Saddam Hussein and his Baathist lieutenants, and went on to play an important role in his removal decades later.

    In every instance of foreign interference, the intentions of Western powers were transparently evident, regardless of whatever formal justifications were given. In the past century, the Middle East has become a major center of attention for Western imperial designs because it is rich in oil, and any time a Western country has interfered in the Middle East, access to cheap and plentiful petroleum has been one of their central motivations.

    This trend continues to this day, regardless of the flowery language of ‘democratization’ that now shrouds our perpetual wars in the Middle East.

    These interventions have been incredibly disruptive and destructive for the nations that have struggled with them and have ensured that socio-political and economic chaos have long been the norm in the nascent states of a post-colonial Middle East. Syrians, Yemenis, Iraqis, Kurds, Palestinians, and countless others have been forced to contend with the discord of their ever-tumultuous homelands, much of which can be directly traced to imperialist interference.

    After all, if the territorial integrity of a country is consistently violated, if its citizens are bombed, if its politicians are regularly ejected from power by shadowy coups, if sectarian war rages, if long standing institutions are non-existent, and if the necessities of life are in constant short supply, how can life ever be stable? How can one possibly live a life devoid of constant fear and trepidation?    

    When we consider these circumstances, it becomes much easier to imagine a situation in which a radical solution to these problems becomes increasingly more appealing. In fact, given the current political situation in the West, it is clear that we are no less susceptible to fundamentalist solutions to a growing list of problems.

    Despite the immense damage it has caused Europe and the world, Fascism seems poised for a major comeback in the mainstream of Western politics. All it took was a little bit of uncertainty, and a dash of resentment and prejudice. So, take this situation, and multiply the level of tumult by a factor of one hundred, and we now have fertile grounds for the rise of fundamentalist terrorist groups.

    Such is the situation that has beset the Middle East. Islamic fundamentalism is therefore not something that grew wholly organically from Islam itself but is rather a reaction to a severe situation instigated by external factors (i.e. The West). 

In many ways, Islamic fundamentalism in its 21st-century form takes direct inspiration from Western rhetoric, decrying its enemies as invaders who are violent, stupid, religiously maladroit, and racially inferior.   

    None of this justifies terrorism, but greatly calls into question the supposition that Islam is more prone to radicalism than any other religion. If anything, this proves that radicalism can and does spawn everywhere and anywhere given the correct conditions. Even a ‘tame’ religion such as Buddhism has its radicals, lunatics, and racists, as evinced by the pogroms committed against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar by Buddhist fundamentalists.    

The Real Question

    Ultimately, the negative perception of Muslims in Western countries is largely founded on prejudicial impulses which stem from a plentiful reservoir of imperialist rhetoric. As such, many of us are far too comfortable with allowing our emotions – rather than facts and logic – to predominate our judgment of a people and religion of which we know admittedly little. 

    Most of us have not met more than a handful of Muslims in our lives, and yet we seem perfectly comfortable with condemning all of them for the sins of a few among their ranks.

    The real question that we should be asking ourselves is twofold: why do we have no apparent reservations as a society reducing nearly two billion people to one-dimensional stereotypes, and why do we think we have a right to ‘fix’ or to intervene in the societies we judge with prejudicial metrics?

    Why do we feel so comfortable describing an incredibly multi-faceted group of people in such patronizing and prejudicial terms? Why is it so hard for some of us to see the human side of this equation? There is certainly a lot of human suffering taking place in countries throughout the Middle East, but we refuse to do anything to alleviate it. In fact, we exacerbate it.

    We are perfectly content with bombing innocent countries into oblivion in the name of security, placing young men in concentration camps for crimes real or imagined, and torturing the innocent. But when our crimes give rise to poverty, and instability enables the rise of monsters, we refuse to accept any consequences for our actions. We wash our hands of the situation and walk away. We balk at the idea of sending aid, and we see the hundreds of thousands of refugees from the Middle East and elsewhere as a threat to our way of life.

    Rather than seeing the hundreds of thousands of young college graduates who want to salvage their futures, or hard-working parents who want their children to survive, we see a clandestine army designed to subvert our civilization. At the end of the day, Muslims are human beings, and like you or I most of them want similar things: peace, prosperity, and dignity. So why do we refuse to see this?

    The fact that it is even necessary to comb over the myriad range of crackpot arguments is indicative of just how skewed our perception of the Muslim world truly is, and how much we still must learn about cultures different from ours. This is more than just a question of what is politically correct but is literally a matter of life and death. Our skewed view of the Middle East and elsewhere informs our foreign policy, and it has led to the deaths of millions of innocents in the advancement of ill-defined strategies.  

    It is crucial that we engage in extensive self-examination as Americans and Westerners and evaluate whether our actions in the Middle East have truly been as altruistic as we have portrayed them. We also must take a long hard look at the countries that we have targeted with our ‘democratization’ efforts.

    When we look at the countless countries we have interfered with – Iraq, Libya, Egypt, Afghanistan, Yemen – can we honestly say these are now more peaceful, more prosperous, and more democratic countries? And when we look at the hundreds of thousands of innocent Muslim men, women, and children who were senselessly killed by our bombs, can we really get away with saying that Islamic fundamentalists are the deadliest existential threat to the Middle East?

    And when our efforts at ‘liberation’ are met yet again with failure, does the fault truly lie with a group of people we have arbitrarily decided are incapable of enjoying the fruits of democracy, or does it lie instead in a fundamental dearth in our understanding of the cultural and historical context that dominates the countries of the Middle East?

    Did we fail because Arabs did not want freedom, or rather did we fail because we were never bringing them democracy in the first place?

    Of course, all of this belies the fact that we have absolutely no right to intervene in Middle Eastern countries. Rather, we simply say we do, and justify it under the banner of national security and democracy. Our invasion of Iraq for instance was a flagrant violation of that countries' sovereignty, and it set an unamiable precedent for future ‘preventative’ invasions. It is no exaggeration to say that it was one of the most flagrant crimes of the 21st century.  

We will readily stoop to the depths of human depravity for the sake of feeling safe and will commit brazen acts of cruelty against people we scarcely understand. These are hardly the actions of a magnanimous liberator. They are far closer to those of the brutal conquistadors of the 16th century. 

    Ultimately, the greedy and selfish opportunists of our society are the ones that benefit from this abject cruelty. The greatest benefactors of our ignorance are the snake oil salesmen, the sectarian bigots, the arms dealers, and the petroleum giants of the world. They profit from suffering. For them, facts, borders, and international laws are mere trifles, inconveniences that can be swept away with generous amounts of misinformation and bribery.

    When we lend ourselves to arguments founded on what we feel is right, but not what is backed by empirical logic, we play into their hands. So, it is up to us to break that cycle. Don’t allow yourself to be swayed by narrow-mindedness. Speak up when you see or hear Islamophobia and reject imperialism. 

    Muslims are not the enemy. They are your fellow human beings, and they deserve to be treated with respect, empathy, and dignity.

Leave a comment! All engagement is good engagement, if you squint hard enough. Write us at contrarypedant@gmail.com with your (angry) thoughts!   

FURTHER READING

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2014/nov/05/ben-shapiro/shapiro-says-majority-muslims-are-radicals/

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/08/09/muslims-and-islam-key-findings-in-the-u-s-and-around-the-world/

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Jihad

https://www.pewforum.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2013/04/worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-full-report.pdf